Drift
by 94stars
Summary: The chances of getting out of this alive are none.
1. Drift

**Author's Note:****  
><strong>I refuse to believe any movie that just lets George Clooney die that easily.

I'm surprised that there aren't more stories in the _Gravity_ archive that explain what happened to Matt after he detached himself from Ryan. I guess I'll be the first.

Honestly, I didn't care for too much for _Gravity_.  
>But I do love everything about outer space. I wanted this to realistically follow the movie's logic, thus, it's going to address a few things about space, the ISS, NASA, the ESA, and astronauts in general that Alfonso Cuarón glazed over a little bit during <em>Gravity<em>.

I will try to update this story whenever I can. I have many other FanFiction projects to work on, but please let me know what you think! I appreciate the feedback. Enjoy.

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><p><em>August 28th, 2014<em>  
><em>249 miles above Earth<em>  
><em>Coordinates: 24°15'14.78" N, by 63°56'58.58" E<em>  
><em>9:16 PM, United States ET<em>

* * *

><p>Matthew Kowalsky drifted silently in space. He was a white speck on black. It wasn't any kind of black that existed on earth. This black was strange. Endless. It was the very definition of nothing. It bored into the depths of who knows where.<p>

He had never beheld anything like it.

Matt looked out from within his suit. He glanced down at his watch. The face of it read _9:16_. It had been ten minutes since he had detached himself from Dr. Stone. Matt stared across the Void, thinking about her.

He had just committed suicide. He had given up his life—to save hers. It was the best thing he could have done at that moment. Yes, it was unfortunate, but he wouldn't have had it any other way. No matter how distraught it had made her, she was safe… which was all that mattered.

The soothing sounds of Hank Williams Jr. played in Matt's suit. He reached for his chest-module, twisting the knob to turn him off. He didn't feel like listening to his favorite musician anymore. Matt was ten minutes short of breaking Anatoly's record.

He glanced outside of his helmet, and he stretched his gaze out into the Void. Space stared back. It wasn't dark. Being inside of a room with the light off was dark… closing the insides your eyelids was dark. This was black.

No light. No sound. It sat in stoic silence… like it knew something you didn't know. Nothing looked back at you from within it... and he was heading further into it.

Matt levitated in the exosphere, a silent dot over the earth. The planet rested below in overwhelming splendor. It was a wall of blue stucco, with green and tan patches of land, all coexisting underneath a sky of twirling, white clouds. Down there, countless people were dying. Most people think that they'll end up in a car crash, or get some terminal illness just before they die. Never do they think about the possibility of being stranded out in space.

Well. At least it was an interesting way to go.

Matt's pupils went up to read his levels.

_O2 down to 1%._

In the next sixty seconds, he was going to take this story to his icy grave.

Anatoly would be so proud.

A clink and hiss went off in Matt's suit, alerting him. A small beep emitted from his visor. Matt stole a glance up. The letters _SOP_ blinked red.

SOP. Secondary Oxygen Pack.

Matt stared at the figures. It was only up until this moment that he had remembered this feature. The Secondary Oxygen System system automatically kicked in when an astronaut's Primary Life Support System dropped too low. It gave an astronaut 30% more oxygen—another thoughtful token, courtesy of NASA.***** However, there was no point. There was no hope of rescue, and no way to get back to the International Space Station. Hope in this situation could never thrive and grow... just like anything else that dared to flourish and live out here.

Matt's eyes bore into his visor screen. They were fixed on the blinking letters in front of him: _O2 down to 30%._ Those numbers only signified that he had thirty minutes left to live. The readings continued to beep… the seconds he had left hobbled along, slowly dying before him. Slowly, but surely.

Matt released a frosty breath onto his polyurethane helmet. It fogged up.

_Tick_, his wrist watch said.

His visor clouded with fog. The fog faded... and then came back again.

_Tick_, his wrist watch reminded him again.

Matt's pitch-black eyes seared out of his helmet. His face was a barely reconizable shadow. The only source of light that was strewn across it was a hazy green from his visor readings.

Matt strained to look out of his helmet, and stared at The Void. It stared back... with nothing to offer him. Nothing to help him get back home.

Matt's gaze ventured out further than that... past this universe... and entered into the next world beyond this one.

The next universe made eye contact with him. It stared at Matt... unwelcomingly.

What if something else was out there?

Matt's eyes did not move. The next world smiled back at him. It spoke, a cold voice within his head.

_You're going to die_.

Matt blinked.

It was a voice so cold, so devoid of humane feeling. He had never heard anything like it. Something slithered around inside of Matt's gut, like a small insect, fidgeting around to find a safe place to hide from a lurking predator. It made him sick.

This place—this ancient, long-forgotten place—knew that he was going to die. Almost as if the Void itself was a highly intelligent creature all its own, that was absolutely delighted with Matt's approaching death sentence. Like it was just waiting, watching for the moment of his expiration so that it could use his very frozen, very dead body for… God knows what.

Matt shut his eyes.

A man should never be alone with his thoughts. It was the most dangerous thing in the world.

But there was nothing he could do about his current situation. If this was the price he had to pay for Dr. Stone's life, so be it. He was fine with that... he just needed to learn to accept the fact that he was going to become just another piece of satellite debris, dead and frozen as he circled Earth's orbit.

Orbit.

And then, a single, solitary speck of an idea sank into Kowalsky's head. His face lit up. His eyebrows joined together… his face forming into something serious.

_Orbit_…

Matt turned in his space suit. His eyes bared anxious curiosity—and reflected the eternal darkness of space.

The ISS would be coming back. It did every ninety minutes. Every ninety minutes, the ISS came back, along with that killer Russian satellite debris. Matt had missed his first opportunity to board the station with Ryan only a few minutes ago. But what if… what _if...?_

Matt closed his eyes to do a quick equation in his head.

He had already spent ten minutes floating around up here. Thus, the ISS would be coming back in eighty minutes.

If he had 30% oxygen left, he'd have thirty minutes left to live. because an astronaut's O2 level was the same as the amount of minutes it had before it ran out.

If he had 80%, he'd have…

And then it hit him. Matt's eyes ripped open. It was crazy... it was outrageous... it was such a simple notion, it border lined on genius.

Don't use the oxygen.

Matt furrowed his eyebrows. He let this this germinating seed of insanity grow. If he discontinued his emergency oxygen, he should have been able to gain_ fifty _more minutes to the thirty minutes he already had. That is, if he could hold off on oxygen for two minutes—forty times.

Fifty plus thirty… made eighty.

He had Harvard to thank for pounding this much arithmetic into his head.

Matt looked up at his levels.

_O2 down to 29%._

Matt stared at his visor. The red figures in front of him continued to blink. _29%_. _29%_. He had lost 1%.

Matt's eyes began to wander.

This was wishful thinking. The chances of getting out of this alive are none. Only a fool at the end of his fraying rope would consider _holding your breath_ as a reliable alternative to save you.

Matt's eyes dropped, and he turned over his wrist to view the face of his watch. The second hand was slowly inching its way to the top of the twelve. One silent tick. Another silent tick.

It was a steel harbinger of certain death that was sure to come.

Matt's dark eyes came up. He stared.

Would this be crazy enough to work?

He didn't have time to think about the reliability of his idea. He didn't have time to contemplate the most plausible outcome. Every second he spent thinking about it, he wasted by not _doing it_. He had to stop breathing—now.

Matt inhaled.

He took in a deep sip, filling every crack and crevice in his lungs. He could feel them expanding to their limit, and then he held.

Everything went silent. The lonely call of space grew just a little louder. Matt then realized how much he had taken the sound of his own breathing for granted. All throughout the STS-157 mission, it had been a constant reminder to him that something living existed out here.

Matthew reached up to his chest, and flipped Hank Williams Jr. back on.

* * *

><p>All of mankind sat below. Every soul, completely exposed. It was early morning in New Delhi, and the second half of the globe was cloaked in darkness. The earth sat and rotated in an extraordinary, blue glow.<p>

Matt drifted. His first session of holding his breath was almost up, and the skin of his lungs were as tight as a drum. He closed his eyes… pried them open. He hadn't held his breath this long since he was on the Varsity swim team in high school. Who knew such an insignificant extracurricular activity would help in his career at NASA.

Matt blinked, and then noticed his home planet before him. It turned in silence. Matt took a moment to look down at one part of the world. The sun was coming up over Pakistan. The jagged mountainside lit up, and casted shadows over the deep valleys and gorges. Matt looked at another part of the world. In the Himalayas, the sun hit the frost-covered mountains in a light orange. If anyone was scaling Mount Everest this morning, the sunrise would have been fantastic for them.

Matt's eyes were like glass as he observed the world. The globe turned upon his polyurethane helmet. It was mid-day in China… the busiest and most populated place in the world.

What did the people of China do at this hour?

Matt thought. Different, made-up people came into his mind. They were busy running to work... listening to traffic reports… meeting up with friends… falling in love. Maybe there was even someone who was looking up at the sky, observing the weather, or noticing a hazy moon on one of those rare occasions that it came out during the daytime. Perhaps they were taking a moment capture this strange occasion... appreciating anything else that was up there, and wondering about anything else that lay beyond the earth's atmosphere.

Matt's smile of approval went down to that person.

He checked his watch. The first session of holding his breath was almost up. The second hand hit the number twelve and marked two minutes. He could breathe again.

Matt released a rush of air, causing his helmet to flare white. His heart beat faster, blood rushing through his veins to warm them up. As Matt took a minute to recover, he stole a glance up at his readings.

_O2: 29%._

His Secondary Oxygen Supply had held on for two extra minutes.

Excellent. This was exactly what he wanted.

Matt checked his watch. When the second hand reached the next whole number, he inhaled. He filled his lungs with fresh oxygen until they were about ready to tear apart, and then held. And waited.

Matt lifted his eyes away from the Earth and let them wander the solar system. His pupils roved around in the darkness, peering into the depths of nothing. The frightful black eye of space stared back.

The Void watched him... waiting... waiting for something...

Matt's radio module whined in and out. Hank Williams Jr.'s voice coiled and recoiled, becoming choppy.

"…_Onder where you arr…_"

Static crackled.

Matt blinked, visibly vexed. Now what?

"…_Copy…_"

Matt's face softened.

Something moved inside of him. It was the primitive drive of survival.

Was that…?

"_Matt, this is Ryan, copy?_"

It was.

Matt's eyes glistened; the reflection of earth lay thin on his helmet. They had reestablished contact.

Matt's mouth opened. He wanted to say something... but he caught himself. He didn't.

His expression transformed to tightened dismay.

No.

Matt gave up his view of the world, and surrendered his eyes once more to the darkness surrounding him.

No, please. Not now.

Ryan's voice popped and fizzed over the whining transmission.

"…_I made it… I'm here…_" Ryan said over the static,"_…On the station… do you copy?_"

Something pounded against Matt's chest. He heisitated. He wasn't sure if this rush of adrenaline was the hope of a potential rescue, or hearing Ryan's voice again.

Matt remained silent. In order to copy, he needed to speak… which required oxygen.

"_Come on, Matt, talk to me..._" Ryan crackled over his radio. "_Tell me where you are, give me your position. Where are you? Give me a visual, just tell me what you see._"

Matt's eyes sat dead. His gaze was fixed on nothing in particular. He came out of it, and began to turn to the side in his suit, gazing down below.

The Earth turned. Civilization never seemed so far away.

"_Oh,_ _come on_," Ryan said. "_You've been yammering since we left Cape Canaveral, now you decide to shut up?_"

Silence.

Matt closed his eyes.

_Thought I could do you a favor,_ he thought back.

She probably thought that the worst, comprehensible thing that they could both think of had happened to him. There were no words to describe how gut-wrenchingly guilty he felt for helping Ryan believe that.

And she would never know the truth.

"_Talk to me," _Ryan said._ "Just say something, say anything, I don't care!_"

It could have been the faulty transmission... but something in her voice was cracking. It almost tempted Matt to give in. He wanted to listen to more of it.

It made him feel... like somebody out in this big vat of nothing.

Matt's glance rolled away. He wanted to say something to calm her down. He wanted to tell her to keep it together, and not to worry about him... to tell her that she was going to be alright. But that would have its own consequences. If he breathed a single word back to her, Ryan would immediately jump at the first opportunity to come back for him... and her one shot at survival would have gone right down the drain. That was not about to happen on Matt's watch. They both didn't have the time—or the resources to do this together anymore.

Matt blinked, pained.

He reached up... and flicked his radio off.

The purest of all silences came in between them. Matt looked up, and gave Ryan a gaze across the Void. He copied back to her in his head.

_Can't_. _Wish I could._

Undiluted silence. In that moment, Matt began to understand the lonely ache that reigned within the universe just a little bit better. It was empty, and cold.

His radio crackled. Hank Williams Jr.'s guitar whined back in.

"_That lonesome whippoorwill… he sounds too blue to fly… I'm so lonesome I could cry."_

Even though his country music had come back on, the Void remained ever silent. It was a deathly silence. It was a silence that could be deeply treasured, for those who truly sought it... or deeply feared.

This type of silence could make a man wonder how much of it should be taken in. If he wasn't careful, he would soon want to hear something… _anything_ else other than this silent roar. And when the Void would not grant his request, he would slowly start to unwind, and beg for the darkness to communicate with him… plead for the Void to send him a noise… even if it wasn't from a human being. A rock, a piece of satellite debris, _something_. Something to reassure him that he wasn't alone in this universe. But the horrible, sad truth was—he was.

Matt then looked up, realizing the full scope of what he had just done. Hank Williams Jr. yodeled in his ears, but he couldn't hear it.

He had just said no to help. His country music gradually became noise to him. It grew colder, and colder. The Void bore unspeakable darkness into his body, and Matt could feel it grinning all around him.

He was all alone, now.

* * *

><p><strong>*<strong>The Secondary Oxygen Pack (SOP) is a real feature used by NASA to give an astronaut 30 more minutes of oxygen when the Primary Life Support System drops too low.  
>Feel free to look up "Secondary Oxygen Pack, NASA" on a search engine to read more about it. Please leave a Review!<p> 


	2. Debris

**Author's Note:**  
>The more suspenseful part of this Chapter was written to the piece, "<em>Parachute<em>" from the _Gravity_ soundtrack. I highly recommend listening to it (especially after the 6 minute mark) if you want the full effect of this Chapter. Enjoy.

* * *

><p><em>August 28th, 2014<br>248 miles above Earth  
>Coordinates: 15°11'06.82" N, by 22°00'21.66" E<br>10:23 PM, United States ET_

* * *

><p>Matt had been looking into his mirror to pass time during his oxygen conservation sessions. He rolled over his wrist. A couple of stars gleamed back at him, like lost diamonds floating amidst a black sea. Matt moved his wrist back and forth. Back… forth.<p>

It wasn't watching NASCAR, but it was something to do—just to get his mind off of his current situation. It helped, but it was beginning to grow stale.

Matt parted his gaze from his mirror. He stared ahead.

Blackness stared back at him. It pierced through his body with such a silence that no human could understand.

Matt would never wish this kind of silence to anyone on earth. This place was too lonely. Too dark. Too… off.

Matt looked up, his eyes roving outer space for something. The stars glared at him.

There was something about them that didn't make them seem so beautiful anymore if you stared at them long enough. They were all like eyes, glowing millions of light years away. They whispered secrets to each other, secrets that no man on Earth could ever know about.

It felt like they were watching him.

Matt searched harder for the thing to help him through the black abyss, his eyes growing darker with every turn. It was like one of those old movies where the hero knew that someone was watching him, because he could feel their eyes on his back, and as the music in the background grows, telling the hero to look behind him, look behind him… the hero turns around… but the villain is not there.

Matt gazed up inside of his helmet, eying a mass scatter of stars.

He came to a resolute realization. Something else was out here.

Something new that he had not experienced before on previous missions. And he felt like he was involved with it. He felt a certain electrical connection with it, like that inside of networks of computers. But what else could possibly be out here besides him and Ryan? Life in space is impossible. There wasn't anything watching him.

_There is_, a cold voice said.

Matt blinked.

The temperature inside of his suit plummeted. Icy pearls shot through his blood.

Where in the world had that come from?

Matt hardened his eyes. He recognized this voice from earlier. A desire to spit back at it roused within him.

_And maybe my imagination's talking whack because I'm having a bad day_, he thought.

But that did not silence the voice. It spoke again.

_'It _**may be**_ your imagination?'_ it said._ It sounds like you're not quite convinced yourself._

Matt stared. This voice had not spoken to him before. How could anyone have such a voice like this?

Matt shut his eyes, and two words seeped into his head.

_Zip it._

Silence.

The voice left him alone. For now.

Matt clenched his jaw, and reopened his eyes. He glared darkly into nothing.

He was arguing with himself... up here, without a soul in sight for the next thousand miles. This is what crazy people do. Talk to themselves. But Matthew Kowalsky didn't have time to go crazy right now. He had to keep it together... just keep it together... because a good commander always keeps it together. Even in situations where he had every right to break down.

Matt felt another minute coming to a close. He raised his wrist to check his watch.

_10:23_.

It was also going on eight-thirty in Dallas right now... his hometown.

The sky was always taken for granted in Texas. It was the best type of sky to stargaze under. It held the window to look into the next universe.

Matt could still remember one night where he sat underneath it in his father's '73 pickup. He was with one of his first girlfriends... Jennifer Fairfield. She and him sat on the tailgate, their arms wrapped around their knees. They stared up into the depths of space.

"Matt, it's been an hour, my butt is sore, and I don't see anything. Can we go back inside now?"

"Keep looking."

Jen sighed. She looked up and skimmed the stars, as if searching for something hidden up in the heavens. The lonely hum of crickets rang in the air. Matt gazed up and pointed.

"That one is called Alnitak. It's supposed to be bigger and brighter than our sun. It's a part of the Orion—or Horsehead nebula. You like horses, right?"

"Ugh!"

Jen lolled her head, and fell back into Matt's chest. Matt looked down.

"Oh, that hurts..."

Jen lifted her head up.

"Matt, can we talk about something that's not related to outer space?"

"Sure, no problem. We can talk about… your hair. I think the only reason why there's a clear sky tonight is because you burned up the Ozone layer with your hairspray."

"Uh-huh… very funny."

"C'mon, babe. Please try to show some respect. Most people don't appreciate this."

Jen threw out a sigh. She scootched up a little straighter.

And then, Matt exploded with glee. He shot up and stood on the tailgate, pointing his finger heavenward.

"_THERE!_ There, there!"

Jen gazed up, the wind beginning to gather in her flyaways. She locked her eyes on the black vastness of space. A white speck shot across the sky. Another one followed. Soon, hundreds of white flecks gathered speed in the same direction, and were flung across the heavens like a silent hailstorm.

Matt and Jen kept looking up. The meteors flew over their heads. They eventually slowed down, and came to an innocent stop. Jen and Matt didn't say anything for a while. They sat together in silence, and kept looking up somewhere together.

It was a night that was buried away in his memories. Matt hadn't thought about that night in years. Their relationship didn't last... like all high school romances. She and him had went their separate ways. They both shared different interests.

Matt looked down at his wrist, examining his mirror.

Maybe there was something wrong with him—if not psychotic—for wanting to be an astronaut. He could have been a dentist… or an insurance agent. But no. It had to be astronaut for some reason.

A mysterious dot in his mirror twinkled at him, and then gave out. Matt settled his attention on it. It gleamed at him again, and then it gave out. It was twirling. It was behind him, heading in his direction.

Matt turned.

His eyes contracted, and the reflection of the object twinkled in his dark irises.

The debris.

Matt let go of his breath and burst into his communications assembly.

"Houston, Houston in the blind, this is Commander Matt Kowal—"

He didn't finish his sentence.

A piece of debris the size of a Boeing 777, twirled in mid-air, slammed against a larger piece of debris, and split it in half. It exploded into a million, sparkling bits. Shrapnel flailed through space.

A silver dot zipped past him. Matt turned to watch it. It barreled into oblivion. Another metal scrap shot past him, fleeing to the edge of the universe. Matt turned around again and spoke. He put on a frustrated smirk.

"Ah, nevermind Houston…!" he said. "Call back and leave a message if you get this..."

Matt signed off, and then turned to eye the collection of debris before him. A wave of silver specks tumbled their way through the cosmos, and among them, was a large white one. The International Space Station. It soared like an oversized dragonfly, sailing faster and faster at 17,000 miles an hour.

Matt looked up in his helmet to check his readings.

_O2 down to 1%._

This was going to be down to the wire.

Some hesitation lingered in the back of Matt's mind. The International Space Station looked bigger the last time he saw it. But Matt shoved all hints of doubt to the back of his head. He didn't have time for that.

Five-hundred yards away:

The International Space Station glided faster. Faster.

Matt stared it down.

Four-hundred yards. It looked like it was gaining an angry amount of speed as it approached him. Or maybe that was just Matt.

Three-hundred yards.

Two-hundred yards.

Matt didn't dare blink.

One-hundred yards.

It was here.

It hit him with a bone-crunching _thud_.

Matt yelled, and he was tossed up into space.

The ISS cruised on, a graceful giant sailing past him.

His head surged. Instructions pounded through his head.

_Grab something, grab something._

The station flew by in a lithe, smooth orbit. Hank Williams Jr. sang away.

_"Did you ever see a robin weep, when leaves begin to die?"_

Matt flung out a hand, reaching for a steel bar. He grabbed it. But it slipped out of his fist.

"R'AGH!"

_"It means he's lost the will to live..."_

Matt's ribs rammed against the station's solar panels. He bounced up, then came crashing down. He reached out in a vain attempt to grab something. He was sliding at hundreds of miles an hour. It was like sliding down the side of a skyscraper and trying to grab onto the glass windows while using only your winter gloves.

"Argggah!"

Matt toppled through space. The Void watched the entire time.

The space station rattled onward, knocking Matt around on the solar panels. He heaved air in and out of his lungs. His boot skidded on the panel underneath him, and it flipped him head over heels. He tumbled over... and over. He threw out a few yells, muffled rumbling pulsing through his suit. He reached up, pushing his hands up on the panel to stay in place.

Through his helmet, foggy, scratchy images shot past him. Red and white stripes, silver bars, white bolts, copper foil, black panels. Familiar station modules tore past him… _Harmony... Columbus_. They all soared past, falling further and further behind—bidding him farewell. It would be the last time he would ever see them again if he did not make it. He had to grab something—_anything_ on this blasted satellite.

A parachute cord slithered aimlessly past him. He considered, but he shot past. Missed.

A white bar hit his knee—and a waft of deployed parachute skirt flew into his helmet. It lifted up and away once Matt flew through it.

He was slowing down—losing momentum. Matt began to twirl rather than spin. The end of the station grew ominously near.

Nearer.

This wasn't going to happen. This couldn't happen.

Matt kicked, trying to gain momentum again. He turned, circling around and around. The International Space Station roared past him. It flew onward... onward… parting from him.

Matt rotated right-side up, and exploded once he saw how far it had gotten.

"No, NO, _NO!_"

His screams were all in vain.

The International Space Station had left him.

It spared no sympathy, because the only reason why it was here was to continue its lonely orbit four-hundred kilometers above the Earth. It soared gracefully over the ocean, speckled with white clouds.

Matt rotated. He felt his brain begin to scramble for answers as to why there wasn't more oxygen. It was getting strenuous to breathe. Matt huffed, puffed. He was taking in more oxygen than what was left in his suit. He knew that. He tried to stop, but he couldn't. It felt like he would suffer from bodily harm if he did.

Matt looked up, burning a hole through his visor. Those horrific numbers froze on the screen before him.

_O2 down to 0%._

The panic did not kick in right away. It was slow, tantalizing… like when a fly gets caught up in a spider's web. The fly knows that its situation is unfortunate, but it is until the fly actually _sees _the spider coming down to greet him—the one who will deliver its ultimate demise—does the fly realize how bad its situation had just gotten.

Matt closed his eyes.

_Keep it together. Keep it together._

And then—one of the biggest, core-splitting impacts that had ever distressed the astronaut, rung through his back—and he was thrown forward.

Matthew Kowalsky flung across the universe.

He yelled... and the Void watched.

Everything stopped. Darkness bloomed in front of his eyes like black roses. His ears throbbed, his steadily decreasing heartbeat chomped down on his veins—a sound so crystal-clear.

_Thud, thud. Thud. Thud._

_Thud._

Everything roared back to life when he hit the International Space Station.

"AH!"

He had caught up to the ISS. His stomach slammed down on the Japanese Experiment Module, and he pinwheeled off to the side. It felt like a truck had just greeted his side.

Matt grunted, straining to keep his expressions of torment to himself. He was spinning. Something exploded out of his back. It introduced itself with a large hiss. Something blinked furiously at Matt. He looked up.

_14.0 psi. 13.6 psi. 12.9 psi._

His numbers, his numbers were dropping, why?

Matt shut his eyes. He heaved his lungs in and out for the last scraps of air he had left in his suit. Everything was falling apart.

He stretched out a white glove, palm out and open... hoping that something—some _thing_—would cross paths with it in the abundance of chaos happening around him.

He kept his eyes shut, with one word searing through his body the entire time.

_Please._

And just like that, a gray tether clinked into his knuckle.

Matt's lids ripped open.

He snatched it, locking his grip on it with both hands. The tether tugged, but he did not depart from it. Matt had a hold of something.

He smiled half-heartedly.

But the tether—his lifeline—skidded a few inches out of his glove. His smile vanished.

Matt held on ever tighter.

The tether skidded another inch... two inches outward.

Matt's gloves were too thick. His fists were resisting to properly clasp around the tether. It was like trying to close your fingers once they had been slammed inside of a door... nearly impossible.

The tether slack snaked around his arm, deciding to fool around with him. Matt violently seized it in a fit of anger. It cooperated this time, and stayed firm in his grasp.

Matt looked up to discover the his lifeline's destination.

It led up to the Quest airlock.

Matt extended a white glove and climbed up the tether. It was getting hot and stuffy inside of his helmet. He climbed up. Left, right until he came up to the airlock door. He grabbed the doorway latch. But then he paused.

He couldn't figure out what to do next.

Something erupted into a violent, silent explosion behind him, shrapnel flinging every which way like enormous razors. He keeled over. He was light-headed. Ink spots blotted around his field of vision, the life beginning to get sucked out of him. His blood flow began to take a more leisurely stroll throughout his body.

Matt was using every part of his body to breath, now. His arms, his stomach. It was so difficult to think. He slammed a frustrated fist into wall of the Quest airlock—four inches away from oxygen.

Something then spoke to him. Not the cold voice, but something deep inside of him. Something that was not afraid and had not been affected by the oxygen deprivation.

_Focus._

The satellite debris ripped through the ISS like shattered glass to a piece of fabric. Matt wanted to stop and sleep more than anything. He fought against every blistering fiber within him that protested against his efforts, and pried the door open to the space station. The hatch lifted up, and then sealed back shut again.

One heave wasn't enough. There wasn't enough strength in his arm to get the door open.

The thing deep inside of him spoke again.

_Yes, there is. Yes, there is._

Matt's eyeballs were reeling. He shut them tight. He gathered every resourceful drop of strength he had left in him, and ripped the door away from the ISS to the point where his muscles went into shock, and threatened to give out if he ever bestowed this much abuse upon them ever again.

He gave a primal shout. Pulling, and pulling, it swung all the way open. It shot out, almost tossing Matt back into the death trap blowing up around him, but he reacted quickly, and gripped the latch handle hard enough for it to mend with his hand.

Another chain of explosions blew up behind him, a horrific red and amber. Metal scraps zipped across the Void in arbitrary directions, starving to reign terror elsewhere.

Matt kicked his legs around, positioning himself horizontal. He slipped inside, feet first.

He gripped onto the inner handle, and reeled it in, sucking every bit of outer space back outside where it belonged. The hatch slammed shut.

Matt made it to the International Space Station.


End file.
